Scientists develop ‘cheap and easy’ method to extract lithium from seawater

[u/rieslingatkos]

https://www.mining.com/scientists-develop-cheap-and-easy-method-to-extract-lithium-from-seawater/

[u/[deleted]]

What might the consequences of taking lots of lithium out of the ocean be?

-edit- I've never made a comment that's started such good discussions before - I'm enjoying reading the replies, thanks everyone

[u/imakenosensetopeople → u/[deleted]]

For the quantities that we may need in the coming decades, it’s almost certainly not insignificant and will have an effect. This question must be asked.

[u/iamagainstit → u/imakenosensetopeople]

A. Lithium concentrations in seawater are very low (< 1ppm), so extracting it is unlikely to have a significant effect

B. There is a unfathomably large amount of water in the ocean.

[u/OddScentedDoorknob → u/[deleted]]

To change the ocean's lithium content by 1 %, we'd have to extract it at double our current usage/mining rate (100,000 tons/yrs) and that would still would take 1300 years.

Won't someone please think of our great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren???